I confess, Harriet’s journey hit near dwelling. As a former people-pleaser, I do know what it’s prefer to prioritize proving myself to others as a substitute of exploring what I really wished. Seeing her slowly unpack that was each validating and irritating as a result of I’ve been there. However, spoiler-sensitive readers beware: that is a kind of books the place discussing its deeper themes inherently offers away a number of the journey.
One factor I liked was Emily Henry’s humor. It aligns completely with mine: visually descriptive, compact, and fantastically ridiculous. Take this line a couple of character laughing, for instance:
“Kimmy doesn’t cackle; she guffaws. Like each certainly one of her laughs is Heimliched out of her. Like she’s consistently caught off-guard by her personal pleasure.”
The guide’s construction was one other spotlight. The title Completely happy Place is tied into the best way Harriet navigates her feelings. She begins out utilizing a meditation app to “discover her pleased place,” and because the story unfolds, she remembers totally different pleased locations from her previous, every reminiscence tangled along with her current struggles. The guide strikes fluidly between previous and current, revealing not simply Harriet’s historical past with Wyn (her ex and former finest good friend) but in addition how she suits inside her group of longtime buddies.
It’s apparent early on that Harriet isn’t in love with the concept of turning into a mind surgeon, but she clings to it due to the stress from her dad and mom. One of many hardest-hitting scenes for me was when Wyn meets her dad and mom in a flashback. They pile on the expectations, telling her she’ll “save the world” as a surgeon, and you’ll see how that stress crushes her. She seems like her dad and mom’ happiness and hope for her are totally in her palms. Watching her arc, from silent struggling to discovering her love for pottery and at last telling drugs (and her dad and mom) to take a hike was extremely satisfying.
